Category Archives: Games

Sorry For the Interruption

I do a lot of things. I write, I make software like StoryBox and TrackerBox, and I make games and music. Some times, I find it really hard to figure out what to focus on. One week I want to do this, and the next week, I want to do that. It really makes it hard to finish anything new.

Why am I telling you this?

Because, right now, when I should be writing, I’m spending my time working on a game, instead.

I spent 7 years working on games that other people wanted made. It’s one of the reasons I never released another game of my own after Derelict. I tried a couple times, but the GFOP (games for other people) sucked my time and eventually burned me out on working on games at all. I honestly thought I’d made my last game, especially after I tried porting one for a friend of mine and couldn’t complete it. I hope he won’t hate me forever. It was just a case of complete and utter burnout. In the last eight months, I think I spent a grand total of 20 hours working on games (the failed attempt to help out a friend).

But, somewhere near the start of July, I started to get an itch to work on another one. I didn’t start right away, but I did poke around in my code for Infinite Suns (a game I have yet to complete) for a bit. I ended up deciding that it was too much work to finish that game right now (and too costly).

But some friends of mine who participate in a public conversation on YouTube (Indie Indie Conversation) said some interesting things about the flash game market which got me thinking.

I’ve never programmed in Flash before about two weeks ago, so I had no idea what was required, but they helped me get set up (really easy – FlashDevelop and Flixel) and I’ve spent the last two weeks buried in game development.

It’s fun for the first time in a long time. Yes, it’s putting off some work on the books, which doesn’t really please me, but I have to see this thing through, or it will eat at me that I didn’t finish.

What’s up!

Wow, a month’s gone by already. I’ve been head down in work this past month, trying to catch a project up that I got behind on, and I have to say, that really sucks. Mostly caught up now, I think, but there’s still lots of work to do. Go buy 10000 copies of Derelict so I don’t have to do this kind of thing anymore.

On the fitness front, I hit 175 a couple of days ago. Things have started to slow down a bit, which is OK and annoying at the same time, but as of today, there’s only two weeks left of Power 90 Masters, and then it’s picture time. Following that is a week or two of light exercise, just to recover some mojo, and then full on into P90X. I can’t wait.

I’m slowly making progress on Infinite Suns, too. I’m hoping to have it out, by the end of the year, but that’s totally dependent upon the amount of time I get to work on it. I spent a few hours working up a new schedule (yes, a weekly schedule) for my projects in an effort to ensure that I give them all what they deserve, and going forward (after this last push on the money project) I should be able to get thirty to thirty-five hours a week on it, as long as I’m diligent about following the schedule. Yes, you’re right. It’ll probably last all of a week, but I have to try.

Yeah, nothing groundbreaking or newsworthy here, just an update so you know I’m still alive and working.